PinePhone versus Sailfish (Sony/Jolla)

[richieeee]

Hi

I have been using Sailfish on a Sony X and wondered if there are other Sailfish users here that are now using a PinePhone with another OS like Mobian.

I'm considered getting a PinePhone to replace my Sony X that has Sailfish on it and interested how PinePhone with say Mobian compares to Sailfish on Jolla1 or Sony X device, what is better or worse.  For example, how is general performance? Is browsing better on Phosh based OS than Sailfish-browser? Is PinePhone a better daily driver than Sailfish?

Rich

[wibble]

Probably better to ask in the Sailfish subsection of the forum
https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=126

I'm not a sailfish user, but as I understand it the PinePhone support isn't complete compared to the more 'official' devices, so may not be up to being a daily driver.

[mattpenn]

I'm a long time Sailfish user. There are currently no distros for the PinePhone that get close to SFOS on the Sony devices. This is, of course, not at all surprising given the respective age of the projects. SFOS has it's issues but daily driver qualification is always mitigated by Android app support if you have paid for the license.

I do really want to make the switch to PinePhone as my primary device but progress is needed on UX, performance and calling stability before I'm prepared to ditch SFOS which I really like as a product albeit not a FOSS one.

Recent progress on native SFOS browser and Signal client are also showing there's some life in the project. The one feature I've found superior on the PinePhone side so far is the Mobian FDE implementation that lets you set a strong password and unlock with a proper OSK.

[as400]

@richieeee you will never get anywhere near sfos on sony with pinephone. No matter which os you choose. And I'm talking here about basic functionality like calling, texting or battery life.
I did try to daily drive pinephone for a month but went back to my Sony XA2 with sfos. Pinephone gave me too much stress and disappointment.

For me pinephone is just a hobby project. It's not usable device at the moment. And it seems creating mobile, phone oriented and usable OS takes much more time than anybody anticipated.
Also hardware, mainly modem is weak and highly unoptimized. At least in places where cell signal is not strong enough.
Which is the case where I live.

[112113101098101077]

I have the original Jolla (with the t- shirt), the Xperia X with licenced Sailfish X. I threw away the Xperia X when hit by the "multiple operator logo" and refusal to register on the moble network bug. The moment the moment deep- sleep, modem and powermanagment are sorted, I'm going to drive the Pinephone as my daily.

[ragreenburg]

@richieeee you will never get anywhere near sfos on sony with pinephone. No matter which os you choose. And I'm talking here about basic functionality like calling, texting or battery life.
I did try to daily drive pinephone for a month but went back to my Sony XA2 with sfos. Pinephone gave me too much stress and disappointment.

For me pinephone is just a hobby project. It's not usable device at the moment. And it seems creating mobile, phone oriented and usable OS takes much more time than anybody anticipated.
Also hardware, mainly modem is weak and highly unoptimized. At least in places where cell signal is not strong enough.
Which is the case where I live.

I wouldn't say never. In reality a bunch of these devs have had their hands on the PinePhone for at most 1.5 years which isn't long enough to make an entirely functional mobile OS made by volunteers. That being said, comparing OS's with what they were back in Feb 2020 you can see the drastic difference. I also think that once Purism finishes up with their mobile OS then Mobian and PMOS will also be nearly as good as PureOS because they all use Phosh. Don't get me wrong, the PinePhone is currently a bit of a pain and certain OS's have made virtually zero progress in the past 9 months or so (I'm looking at you, UBPorts) but others have made large jumps in usability and most of them are based off of PureOS which also isn't finish yet.

[as400]

Don't get me wrong, the PinePhone is currently a bit of a pain and certain OS's have made virtually zero progress in the past 9 months or so (I'm looking at you, UBPorts) but others have made large jumps in usability and most of them are based off of PureOS which also isn't finish yet.

I do agree with you. Devs are doing great and incredible job. Maybe I expressed myself not clearly enough. What worries me is the hardware not the software.

As I wrote - I live in an area where cell signal is weak. And because of that I have problems with calls breaking up and quality of them. And these problems are much less painful in case of my Sony XA2.
For people living in an more urbanized areas this will be much less of a problem than for me, I suppose. For now I just can't even consider PP being my daily because of that.

[wibble]

Can you connect a better antenna than the printed one? The main cell antenna is I think the only one with a standard connector.

[as400]

Can you connect a better antenna than the printed one? The main cell antenna is I think the only one with a standard connector.

Wait, are you saying that there is the possibility to connect a better antenna ? If the answer is yes - I didn't know that.

TBH - I already sold my PP.

[Old_Mil]

Hi

I have been using Sailfish on a Sony X and wondered if there are other Sailfish users here that are now using a PinePhone with another OS like Mobian.

I'm considered getting a PinePhone to replace my Sony X that has Sailfish on it and interested how PinePhone with say Mobian compares to Sailfish on Jolla1 or Sony X device, what is better or worse.  For example, how is general performance? Is browsing better on Phosh based OS than Sailfish-browser? Is PinePhone a better daily driver than Sailfish?

Rich

I've used Sailfish for the past 3 years.

In every measureable aspect Sailfish on an unlocked Xperia is a far more polished and reliable option than Linux on the Pinephone.

The problem with Sailfish is Jolla's refusal to implement VoLTE which will render it unusable in major markets over the course of the next year, which is leaving people scrambling for options.